silence

James Packer has spoken for the first time of his break-up with Mariah Carey to say their whirlwind romance and short-lived engagement was a ‘mistake’.

In an interview with The Australian, Packer reveals how he has been living as a recluse at his Buenos Aires ranch since his break-up with Mariah in October 2016 after 18 months together.

He describes how he met the songstress at a ‘low point’ in his life when debt within his empire was escalating and when he was looking for a way to spend more time in Los Angeles to be close to his children with second wife Erica.

He was also having issues with his estranged sister Gretel over how they would and invest money they had been left by their late father Kerry.
Two years ago I was terrified. I had $2.3 billion of debt at CPH ­[Consolidated Press Holdings, his private company], over $3 billion of debt at Crown, I’d just appointed Rob [Rankin as chairman of Crown], Macau was falling over and [sister] Gretel was on my doorstep.
‘Then, a year later, I’ve got China falling apart, the Australian casino businesses missing budgets by big amounts, I’ve got Mariah breaking up with me and I’m thinking, ‘F..k!’.

Explaining that it was Brett Ratner, his partner in an ill-fated Hollywood venture RatPac, who introduced him to Carey, he said:
‘I was at a low point in my personal life. Documenting the negotiations with my sister was taking longer than expected.’She was kind, exciting and fun. Mariah is a woman of substance. She is very bright. But it was a mistake for her and a mistake for me.’
While he and Carey are no longer friends, he remains on good terms with second wife Erica and said it was his biggest regret that their marriage failed.

‘It is my biggest regret that I let my marriage to Erica fail. It is what it is and she is doing an incredible job with the kids and we are in a great place,’ he said.

Harvey Weinstein has said he ‘encouraged’ his wife, Georgina Chapman, ‘to do what was in her heart’ before she announced she was leaving the movie mogul. Weinstein who is accused of sexual harassment by a string of women, said that he ‘supports’ her decision and hopes that after he undergoes therapy for sex addiction ,they can ‘rebuild’ their relationship.

Weinstein flew to Europe by private jet, where he will submit himself to a live-in facility in hopes of cleaning his act.

​In a statement by his spokesperson, Weinstein said:
‘​I support her decision, I am in counseling and perhaps, when I am better, we can rebuild.’ Over the last week, there has been a lot of pain for my family that I take responsibility for. I sat down with my wife Georgina, who I love more than anything, and we discussed what was best for our family.
‘We discussed the possibility of a separation and I encouraged her to do what was in her heart. I understand, I love her and I love our children and hopefully, when I am better, I will be in their lives again.’

Kendall Jenner has addressed the Pepsi advert controversy for the first time since it caused a major uproar back in May. Pepsi eventually had to pull the ad while admitting that it “missed the mark” with the protest themed advert, which saw the model, 21, appearing to calm a protest by handing a police officer a can of the famous cola.

Five months later, in scenes filmed for Keeping Up With The Kardashians, the reality beauty – who was said to be “mortified” at the time – is seen speaking about the embarrassing campaign.

In the trailer for the upcoming series of the E! show, she is sat on a bed with sister Kim. “It feels like my life is over,” she tells her older sibling.

Kim replies, “You made a mistake.”

While Kendall had kept silent on it, mum-of-two Kim opened up about the ad last month in an interview with The Hollywood Reporter.

“We’re not perfect, but you see these things in the media, like Kendall and her Pepsi ad, where I see her at home crying.

“But in the media she looks another way because she’s not addressing it.”

While Kendall added: “I’m the most private one. If there’s a moment I don’t want anyone to hear, I talk to myself or talk to someone in another room.”

Kim then revealed that she encouraged Kendall to address it publicly.

“I’m just like, ‘This is wrong. You need to speak up’. She [Kendall] was like, ‘I don’t ever want to show that footage of me crying.'”

“She was trying to not make excuses or be dramatic, but that was what she was going through at the time.”

Two decades after the death of Princess Diana, retired lawyer Stanlee Culbreath, who was one of the first witnesses to the tragic scene of the car crash that killed Princess Diana, has spoken out saying he believed “other forces” were involved in the accident.
His account goes thus:

The 69-year-old says Princess Diana was still alive after the accident and was talking but French emergency services had delayed in coming to her rescue, thereby reducing her chances of survival. He also said a policeman was at the scene but made no move to help the princess. Though he pleaded with the policeman, he was nonchalant and told those who tried to help to get away from the car. He said he remembers telling a friend at the scene that even a junkie on the street will get help faster.

Culbreath also revealed that when emergency services finally arrived and she was released from the car, they passed one hospital but did not take her in there. During the inquest, in 2007, it was disclosed that it took an hour and six minutes from the time Diana was taken from the wrecked car until she reached the hospital. The inquest heard the princess may have lived had French medics not “squandered” crucial minutes treating her at the scene.

Stanlee Culbreath said he remained silent all this while about what went down that night of Diana’s death because her sons, William and Harry, were still too young and he wanted to protect them.

Culbreath said:

“I always thought it was suspicious, that other forces played a hand, but now, 20 years on, I question more than ever whether it was a genuine accident. I just think it is dubious.
“If that’s the Princess, why did it take 20 minutes or so to get to her and, when she was finally released (from the car), why did they pass one hospital and take her to another?”
Culbreath told how, at the scene, although at that time unaware Diana was in the wrecked car, he commented to a friend, “Damn, a junkie on Main Street would get waited on quicker than this”.

He added: “There are so many questions I ask myself over and over again about how the accident was handled and if she could have been saved. I pleaded for the police to help, but they were very nonchalant about the entire thing.

Culbreath, of Columbus, Ohio, had been in Paris on August 31, 1997, as part of a European tour with his friends Clarence Williams and Michael Walker. They arrived in the city hours before the crash and took a late-night sight-seeing tour of the Eiffel Tower. As they made their way back to the hotel in a taxi at around 12.20am, they entered the Pont de l’Alma tunnel and were confronted with the smoldering wreckage of the Princess’s car.

“Our taxi driver stopped a few feet from their limo. We got out only a few feet away from their Mercedes. The car was up on the wall and the front passenger door was already open.”

“We hadn’t heard the bang, as the crash happened just as we got into the tunnel. Their car was smoking, the muffler (from the exhaust) was on the floor. I went over and Trevor Rees-Jones had his legs out of the car and was holding a towel or something to his nose, as he was bleeding heavily. There were only four or five of us there, so I went over to the car and looked into it to see if we could help.

“I didn’t know who was in the back until later but at one point I was… a few inches away from the Princess trying to look through her window.”

“I remember saying to the guys at the time, ‘Is there an ambulance coming or something?’ as there was no sign of one arriving. After 15 or 20 minutes, there was still no paramedic on the scene and I said to my friends, ‘Damn, a junkie on Main Street would get waited on quicker than this’.

“There was only one cop there I could see who told us to get back. He kept saying, ‘Get away, get away’.

“As the window’s in the rear were dark, I could not see who was the in the back. I was pleading with the officer to open the door… it looked like it could be pulled open. He wasn’t doing sh*t. He wasn’t doing anything. It was as if those there had decided nothing could be done. It’s just my opinion, but it took them a long time to get her out.

“It could have been up to 30 minutes before help came. We were there for at least 15 minutes. Why wasn’t an ambulance there quicker? I never heard an ambulance, the whole time I was there. I never heard a siren. My recollection was that there seemed to be an insurmountable amount time for an emergency vehicle to respond. I said to the guys, ‘I’d hate to get into an accident in Paris as nobody shows up’.

He continued: “It’s common sense that the longer someone is left, their chances of survival are less. When we left, there still wasn’t an ambulance. The speed of which they responded was inadequate. Questions need to be asked.”

Culbreath said he was also skeptical about the delay in getting Diana out of the wreckage and claimed the door on her side could have been opened.

He said: “I thought the car was in a condition where you could open the door. I didn’t feel there was enough damage to the car that you couldn’t open the back door – and the front door was already open. So why couldn’t you go through that door?”
He added: “She wasn’t dead, she was talking.”

R Kelly tweeted a video Thursday night that addressed the allegations he has been operating a sex cult.
‘Yo, what’s up, y’all? This your boy Kelly, and I just wanna let all of my fans out there know that despite all of the crap y’all hearing, I will be coming to the East Coast to do my show,’ the 50-year-old said in the dimly lit clip.
‘And, believe me, y’all, it’s a bunch of crap. All right? So I hope to see y’all there. I love y’all,’ the rapper continued.

An explosive Buzzfeed report earlier this month had claimed Kelly was keeping multiple women hostage in a sex cult.

His restrictions of their behavior included, in Buzzfeed’s words: ‘dictating what they eat, how they dress, when they bathe, when they sleep, and how they engage in sexual encounters that he records.’
That information came from Asante McGee, Cheryl Mack and Kitti Jones, who all used to be in ‘Kelly’s inner circle.’

Moreover, the parents of 21-year-old Joycelyn Savage have claimed that Kelly was holding her captive in the cult.
Joycelyn, however, insisted she was not a ‘hostage’ in a video interview with TMZ that went online the day of the Buzzfeed report.
She has also denied her parents’ accusations in a video TMZ posted the day after the Buzzfeed report, saying: ‘I am happy where I’m at and the people that I’m around, and it’s getting out of hand, seriously.’

The wife of Westminster attacker Khalid Masood says she is “saddened and shocked” by the atrocity, saying she “condemns” his actions. Rohey Hydara spoke out after Masood ‘s mother, Janet Ajao, said she had “shed many tears” for her son’s victims.
In a statement released through the Metropolitan Police, Ms Hydara said: “I am saddened and shocked by what Khalid has done. I totally condemn his actions.

“I express my condolences to the families of the victims that have died, and wish a speedy recovery to all the injured.
“I would like to request privacy for our family, especially the children, at this difficult time.”
Masood killed four people in an 82-second rampage in Westminster last Wednesday.
The 52-year-old was shot dead by armed police after fatally knifing Pc Keith Palmer, 48, in the Palace of Westminster’s cobbled forecourt.
Separate inquests into the deaths of the killer and his victims will begin this week.
IS called Ajao “a soldier of the Islamic State” following the attack, but the announcement was greeted with scepticism from commentators, with many noting that the terror group has a record of opportunistically claiming attacks.

In a new interview with Ovo Sound Radio, rapper, Drake, has spilled out on his beef with Meek Mill, his ‘reunion’ with Nicki Minaj and issues with Kanye West and Jay-Z. In the long interview, Drake said he’ll never be friends again with Meek Mill and that he always writes majority of his own songs.

He also addressed Kanye West’s rants about him ditching Jay-z’s Tidal to work with Apple’s Itunes.
“Meek Mill at the time, due to some issue with Nicki [Minaj] or whatever it was, decided to create a narrative that I don’t write my own music because that was what was convenient for him at the time,” Drake told DJ Semtex on Ovo Radio..

“The reason why I never felt necessarily pressured to sit down and defend myself right away, or go do an interview, [was] because anybody that’s been in any room with me knows first of all knows that I am one of the best writers, period. That is what I do,” Drake explained. “That is what I’m known for. I go and write for other people. I write my biggest songs, my biggest hits; the massive majority of my catalogue has all been written solely by me, which is a big feat, because music is a collaborative process.”

“You can interview Meek and ask him if he thinks it was worth it, I bet he’ll tell you ‘no,’” he said.
And Drake doesn’t think the issue had anything to do with not tweeting about Meek’s album.
“Unfortunately, on display for the world, that was a terrible impulsive decision because you weren’t ready,” he said of Meek.

“And in my mind I study the game, and also I’m a very calculated thinker, I’m sitting here thinking you’re ready. I’m thinking this goes so high up that I’m about to see the craziest sh*t I had ever seen. I didn’t know who was going to be on a diss track with him, or what he had ready. I’m thinking this is like three months in the making and I’m getting blindsided.”

“I knew I had to retaliate because I realized he was unprepared,” he explained. “When you realize someone is unprepared you have to strike.”

Although Drake retaliated with “Back to Back, he made it clear that the goal wasn’t to disrespect Nicki Minaj “in any way.”
“You know how good I am at writing music but you really tried to spin the entire narrative of my career, but like end my life and take food from my family and really end it all,” said Drizzy.
“And you didn’t even do it through music you just tweeted. It was like sickening to me. I had to really get revenge on that situation. I respect revenge when it’s warranted and that was warranted.
“It’s not something that I’m proud of because it took just as much of an emotional toll on me — I mean, maybe not as much as it did on him — but it took an emotional toll on me,” he admitted. “It was just a lot. You always gotta hear about it, even just seeing people get so riled up off negativity. It didn’t feel great. It was what had to happen at the time.”